May 31

I'm feeling a bit discombobulated.

(That's a fun word to say, isn't it. Nothing like my all time favorite word, loquacious, but fun to say nonetheless. But I digress...)

Could be the 100 degree heat, but that was outside and several hours ago.

May just be the crazy, head spinning, God is up to something, I was just a part of.

Can't wait to see Him at work in this situation.

I need a good sleep to get my head back together.

Right now I'm in awe.

And discombobulated.

Good night!

Piper-girl is 8!!

Celebrating Piper's 8th birthday today.

She and I headed to Old N@vy bright and early for the $1 flip flop sale and stocked up (can't beat $.86 a pair after my coupon!!). We then hit St@rbucks. I got my new fav mocha coconut frap and she got a non-coffee double chocolate chip frap. Yum!! We came home to a deluxe breakfast of bacon and cinnamon rolls.

Now we are ready to head out to the local library where we signed up to participate in a family craft project, Hulu Gord Painting, sponsored by the Richmond Chinese School.

We'll hit the bookstore afterwards and have dinner out at Pip's favorite restaurant.

Yesterday she decided she wants a scooter for her present, so we found a great deal online and ordered it to arrive later this week.

It's a beautiful day, unlike the rainy one eight years ago when she entered the world.

Love you, my beautiful Piper!!

Headbands for orphans in Africa

I feel blessed to have discovered in a very roundabout way that Elisa
is going with Kari and Visiting Orphans to Uganda and Ethiopia and they were looking for headbands for the girls they would be ministering to. Some of the places they would be going were locations I have become familiar with thanks to the tight knit community of adoption bloggers and orphan advocates.

Headbands and orphans? Really? Right up my alley. I can do that- no I MUST do that!

I ordered headbands because I only had a few on hand and got to work turning my stash of flowers into clips to put on the headbands when they arrived. They got lost in the mail and took 12 days to arrive (Ugh!) but finally came in on Saturday. The girlies and I got right to work.






I glued the flowers and bows onto clips and then handed them over in assembly line fashion. Piper and Teagan then picked out what flower/bow looked best with what color headband and attached them. We played videos on the laptop from y0utube of mission trips to serve orphans in Uganda while we were working. The girlies and I made 110 headbands. The vast majority have flowers with rhinestone centers, but I didn't have enough in my stash to make them all that way, so we improvised and made some with bows and korkers and poofs too. It was so much fun assembling the headbands knowing that they would be headed to girls in Africa. We are excited to hear all about the trip and hope that our donation helps the team meet their lofty goal of 4000 headbands!

Using my gifts for the greater good

Oh my! Where do I begin. Seems like more and more outreach opportunities keep finding their way into my path. And I feel more than compelled to do what I can.

I was asked by Kelly if I would be willing to donate 10% of my website sales from the Month of May to the Sparrow Fund. Of course the answer was of course! Go read all about the Sparrow Fund. It's an amazing idea and I'm sue will be an invaluable resource to adopting families. I just hope that my contribution would amount to something. I promised $50 or 10%, whatever is greater. Sales have been slow recently. Really slow.

Yet I know I shouldn't be surprised that when I opened my in box May 1st I had a new sales invoice from an existing customer who orders about twice a year. It was for $100. $10 in! Here it is May 4th and I've had 4 sales and am up to $160. I just know God is going to bless my socks off this month so that I can bless others!



Then this opportunity came my way a few days ago:

I'm pretty active on a chat board/forum for lovers of a particular kids clothing company. One mom posted asking for a cheap place to purchase a lot of headbands. I expected to just share some of my wholesale contacts. Then I saw that she needed them to send on a missions trip that would be serving orphans in Uganda and Ethiopia. I contacted a few suppliers to see if any would sell them to me at cost. No luck, but one was willing to give me a sale price and throw in a few extra dozen. So I ordered 120 headbands. I'll embellish as many as I can with bows and flowers and get them to the team in a few short weeks to take on their trip. The girlies can't wait for them to get here so they can help me deck them out.

Love it!!

Wish I could do more.

Bows & Bows & Bows in Ethiopia from Kari Gibson on Vimeo.

Excited for all that He'll allow me to do in May!

The Sparrow Fund

I'll edit this and add more later, but for now I'm out the door for work and wanted to get this link up...



http://raudenbushfamily.blogspot.com/2011/05/girly-girl-boutique-for-sparrow-fund.html